


Rosé Wine Stains on Pearl White Lace

by gatonip



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, like no kiddos you're both gay it's okay, these two are super gay for each other but they're in denial about the other liking them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 15:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5054722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatonip/pseuds/gatonip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She loved her, but she didn’t love her back. At least, that’s what she told herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rosé Wine Stains on Pearl White Lace

**Author's Note:**

> I have a very sad headcanon (spoiler all my headcanons are pretty sad) that Rose knew Pearl loved her, and she loved her back, but she was afraid that as her owner Pearl would feel obligated to return her feelings regardless of how she actually felt, and she didn't want them to be together if it wasn't 100% genuinely wanted by both of them and that's why they never dated and the whole Greg thing happened
> 
> This is a result of that

There are only two things in this life that Pearl will damn herself to hell for, if it means that thing will be safe.  


One of them is Steven. The little boy with galaxies floating in his eyes and happiness bouncing in his veins, he is as much heartache as he is miraculous. Steven makes Pearl reevaluate everything about her existence in the best way possible. His courage and motivation to better himself is the inspiration she never knew she needed to do the same for herself. It’s an odd perk she couldn’t have predicted. His birth brought on a pain that Pearl had never experienced before (and swears she’ll never put herself in that position again), but the joy and boundless life he gives her every day is enough to balance out her misery.

Balance, but only just. Her one reason for self-sacrifice is the cause of her loss of the other.

-

Rose Quartz never saw herself loving another in any capacity beyond her general appreciation for most things. Love is simple when you love everything, when you have enough to go around and still have some to spare. She’d receive waves of tittering when she expressed her love for others, elbow jabs and suggestions of how many lovers she must have had in her few thousand years of life up until that point. But she didn’t feel ashamed: loving freely and openly whatever she came across worth loving (which was most things) was more exhilarating and worthwhile than limiting herself. She supposed directing all of her love towards a single being could be interesting, but she wouldn’t bother herself with actively finding such a person. She was a busy gem. If it happened, then it happened.

It happened.

What pleasantly surprised Rose was how being in love with someone didn’t necessarily affect the way she normally loved everything around her. It was simply a different feeling of love, which coexisted happily with her usual brand of affection but had its own flair that left her dizzy.

But as much as she enjoyed the new experience, she cursed herself for choosing the wrong being to fall for. It wasn’t an issue of the person not being agreeable or pleasant; quite the contrary, the object of her affections was truly her favorite of all of the things in existence that she loved. No, what troubled Rose was she had chosen the one person she could never be sure would genuinely love her back.

There were signs. So many hints sprinkled in the way she spoke to Rose, the way she held herself around her. Hands brushing together and whispered secrets, and other Crystal Gems laughing at how “completely obvious” her dearest was being. Rose wasn’t naïve. She was sadly all too aware of the electricity that sparked between them whenever she clung to Rose’s arm. She wanted nothing more than to let go completely and accept what had been handed her. But she couldn’t.  


Pearls are for servitude. They are made-to-order models, toys for those of higher standing in society. They do as they’re told; their owner is their top priority, meant to be protected and pleased. A pearl never has the opportunity to choose what she wants for herself, and even when she does, there’s something fundamental in her programming that won’t let her go against her owner’s wishes. Anything they feel is, whether they realize it or not, just a reflection of what their owner wants them to feel. It’s a sad existence. It’s one Pearl could never truly separate herself from. 

(Or so Rose thought. Homeworld teachings are hard to shake.)

And so every ounce of fondness Pearl displayed for her, Rose forced herself to turn a blind eye to. She scolded herself for ever planting the idea in Pearl’s head that she felt anything special for her. She loved her so dearly to the point that she felt it was driving her to her limits, but Rose didn’t want it returned if she had even the slightest doubt of its sincerity. Every sacrifice on the battlefield, every late night murmuring in the dark, it made her fall in love harder just as much as it drove Rose away. So fearful was she of Pearl’s feelings being but a reflection of her own, there are spans of time in the history of their friendship where Rose avoided Pearl altogether. To readjust her handle on her emotions, she went seeking that experience of drunken infatuation in others. Surely by the time she’d calmed herself, the thick tension between them would dissipate for good. But all it served to do was bottle up her frustrations until, inevitably, she’d crack, and affectionate pecks on the cheek became hot breath on necks and swimming minds, intertwined limbs and declarations of love. In the moment she could be no happier; in the afterglow, berating self-deprecating thoughts bombarded her. And so the cycle repeated.

It concerned Rose how, even when she had pushed off Pearl in her mind as far as she could, became so enveloped in her newest plaything, Pearl’s demeanor around her never faltered. If anything, the ferocity in which Pearl continued to be clearly infatuated with her increased. She became clingier, obviously envious of her pets, and showed little tokens of her affection with more frequency and less subtlety. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. If Pearl still seemed to be in love with her, Rose reasoned, she must not be trying hard enough to stomp out her own feelings (or at the very least hide them).

The thought that Pearl might genuinely love her back passed Rose’s mind occasionally, but never stayed for long.

\--

The thought that Rose might genuinely love her back passed Pearl’s mind occasionally, but never stayed for long.

In the thousands of years before and after the war, Pearl couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge it. She lived for the moments where she could convince herself that she was Rose’s everything just as much as Rose was her everything. Those moments were ones where, delusional as they were, she was happiest. But as she mourned the death of her beloved Rose and struggled to stop the agony from swallowing her whole, she was forced to face the truth. If she had loved her as much as she thought she did, Rose would still be alive. She wouldn’t have bothered with her playthings, not after seeing how obviously uncomfortable they made Pearl. The instances of feeling that she was truly loved wouldn’t have been as far and in between as they had been, especially in the years leading up to and including Rose’s final game. There was too much lag time, too many mixed signals, too much silence that never properly counterbalanced the stolen kisses and fusion dances she held on so dearly to. For every night of them being one, there were weeks of contradictions. There was no security. There was no proof.

And so Pearl’s year of unending self-destruction and emotional toil following her demise was made all the more worse as this realization crashed down on her. Although she’ll never regret her decision to stay by Rose’s side until the day she shatters, sometimes she questions every other choice she’s made since then. She questions if she wasn’t simply another plaything to Rose, but one that she couldn’t dispose of in a few decades when her mortal body gave out.  


She falls apart, and questions if she was always just a pearl to her.

\--

She was never just a pearl to her.

\--

Despite everything, Pearl couldn’t bring herself to abandon Rose in her mind. Try as she might there was nothing that could calm the storm brewing in her mind whenever she was mentioned. Every time Steven said or did something so like his mother, it was too much for her to bear. He deserves to be loved for who he is, not who he was. But his smiles are so much like hers. He loves with a ferocity that Pearl has only seen in her. Homeworld returns and they want him, because of her. Pearl’s determination to remain on Earth, her initial detest for the little boy she now calls her own, her moments of weakness where all of her progress goes down the drain…it’s because of her. It always comes back to her.

Rose was a stain so far set in that she could never wash out.

\--

Pearl was the security of fresh, clean linen you were scared of soiling.

The self-hatred that Pearl carried around with her like a ball and chain, Rose saw as completely unwarranted. Never had she met someone as dedicated to what she believed in as Pearl was. She could never easily be swayed even under the best circumstances, and for every mistake she made she tried ten times harder not only to remedy it but prevent it from ever happening again. After learning the basics of combat, she tirelessly trained herself further without any prompting, without any true necessity outside of the will to better herself. Every day Rose watched Pearl berate herself and despise her existence, and every time she wanted to scream in her face, “No! Look at what you’ve accomplished; look at what you can do! How do you not see your own brilliance? How do you not love yourself as much as I love you?” She couldn’t fathom how someone so wonderful couldn’t see themselves that way. She couldn’t believe she had let Pearl risk her life.

From day one of the rebellion, Rose gave her an out, and fear crept in when she refused it. Rose didn’t know what lay ahead of them, what damage the war would do to her sweetheart if she were to continue on. It petrified her to think of Pearl, weary and unable to fight back, crushed to pieces and scattered around the battlefield. Every time Pearl retreated to her gem after trying to protect Rose, she hid away and questioned herself and her motives. How dare she call herself a leader, a decent gem, for putting someone she swears to love so deeply into harm’s way? It sickened her. Rose sickened herself.

But Rose loved Pearl so much more than she could ever hate herself.

\--

Pearl loved Rose so much more than she could ever hate herself.

Such a thing seems unimaginable to Pearl, that she could ever feel more strongly about something than how much she completely loathes herself. Thousands of years of preaching about her uselessness had taken their toll, and she barely had a shred of self-confidence to her name. It’s a wonder that she’s still around. Her boy accepts her for who she is, and on most days, that’s enough.

The other days, it’s not. Her existence is a joke; she’s nothing but a fancy trinket for someone to flaunt around. She wanders aimlessly, no direction in her life if there’s no owner to command her. It baffles Pearl that she was able to participate in something as extraordinary as a rebellion against her people – let alone be second-in-command – and come out of it victorious. Why her? She’s nothing special. Why would Rose befriend her as she did, why did she keep her around? Why was she saved when so many others like her didn’t survive the war?

Sometimes Pearl questions what the rebellion would have been like if she’d not been around, how many gems would have been spared if she hadn’t been forced to crush them. She wonders how many rebels would have survived had she not been in this position at that moment, who would have taken her place and been spared in that final battle.

But regardless of the What Ifs and the If-Thens, Pearl cannot deny that the happiness that Rose brought her far surpassed anything she could ever hope for herself. Her warmth and wisdom and love are all things Pearl doesn’t think she would have survived very long without, certainly not as long as she has. And, when her loathing takes a reprieve and she can respect her own existence, Pearl thinks that maybe she provided a moment or two of happiness to Rose in return.

In the end, Pearl was never happier than when they were together.

\--

In the end, Rose was never happier than when they were together.

\--

In the end, it’s the one truth they both knew for certain.


End file.
